Coming to Terms
by wolfsea
Summary: After Sasuke kills Orochimaru, Naruto manages to recapture him and drag him back to Konoha.  Sasuke's thoughts on then and now. Oneshot.


Author's Notes: This is the first time I've ever written fanfic, I generally prefer to write for my original stories, but a friend asked me to write a fic for her and this is what I managed. Reviews and constructive criticisms are always welcome.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and make no profit from anything written here.

Coming to Terms

'_This is not the way things were supposed to work out,'_ Sasuke thought to himself as he watched Naruto wrestle with the runaway child whose retrieval had been deemed their mission. Apparently the kid had made a run for it after an argument with his parents, but he had barely made it into the woods before the mission had been handed down, which led to Naruto holding a child in a headlock because he wouldn't stop squirming. Like any dignified adult, Sasuke stood away from the squabble and glared.

"Quit struggling and stop screaming!" Naruto yelled at the child, "We're just talking you back to the village."

"I don't want to go back!" the kid shouted in return before biting down on Naruto's arm.

Naruto cried out in surprised pain before wrenching his arm away from the kid and grabbing a hold on the back of the boy's shirt and holding him up off his feet.

"That's it!" he snarled as he reached menacingly into his travel pack.

Three minutes and a length of rope later, the kid was effectively tied up and hoisted over Naruto's shoulder where he was free to voice his displeasure without causing any further injury.

"You could have helped, you bastard," Naruto said, visibly irritated.

"You mean to tell me that after all this time you've spent becoming a ninja, you are incapable of capturing a seven year old?" Sasuke questioned flatly.

"I dragged your ass back here didn't I?" Naruto shot back. He was met with a glare and annoyed silence.

"I don't want to go back to the village!" the boy yelled again.

'_You're not the only one,'_ Sasuke thought bitterly. He supposed that returning to Konoha was really when his life had taken a turn for the worse.

After Sasuke had established that he was through learning everything he cared to learn from Orochimaru, there had been the small ordeal of killing the Sannin. With his instructor dead, there had been no reason to remain in Sound and he had left without looking back. He had a goal and his single-minded drive to achieve it would not allow for distraction. Distraction found him anyway, in the form of a black and orange blur that accosted him on his search for sightings of Itachi.

Naruto's appearance had been unexpected, but Sasuke had not anticipated it to be much different from the last time they had fought. He had been wrong. At the Valley of the End, Sasuke had possessed an advantage because Naruto had never truly believed that Sasuke would really abandon them all. After he had been faced with this reality, Naruto had been forced to take the fight more seriously, but it had never crossed his mind that he would lose. He would fight and bring Sasuke back and everything would be okay. It had always worked for him in the past and he had no reason to doubt himself.

The Valley of the End was the first time where Naruto's perseverance and determination just weren't enough. He faced the same problem in their encounter at Orochimaru's lair.

Naruto was different the third time. As Sasuke had avoided attacks and sought to make his own, he saw the changes in the other ninja. His eyes were focused and thoughtful in a way that Sasuke had never known them to be, yet the old determination remained. Naruto attacks had been a little more planned than usual and he didn't seem to have any qualms about harming Sasuke as long as he didn't kill him. As Sasuke finally fell to a surprise attack, he realized what had changed.

Naruto fought like he knew he could lose.

He had always refused to accept the idea that he could ever fail at anything he set off to do, but his experiences with Sasuke had taught him differently. Naruto had lost to Sasuke before and there was an edge to him now that he knew it was possible. He fought with a fierceness that spoke of his devotion to this self-made goal and with the knowledge that if he couldn't beat Sasuke now, then he might fail in that goal.

This was apparently unacceptable because the next time Sasuke opened his eyes, he was in Konoha's hospital and was both restrained and heavily guarded.

Life after that had been tense. He had been forced to endure seeing all the people whom he had left behind and deal with their distrust and anger, which shouldn't have bothered him, but their constantly suspicious gazes were _annoying_.

Reuniting with his old team had also been less than pleasant. Sakura had stared at him for at least ten minutes in muted shock before she had lashed out with a punch that broke his nose. She seemed perfectly agreeable after that. When it was decided that he needed constant supervision, he spent a year living with Kakashi, which he didn't recommend to anyone. Sasuke had no idea how the man had managed to live alone for so long when he seemed completely incapable of performing any home-related tasks.

It had been difficult to be surrounded by people after having become solidly independent. There were guards watching him almost constantly to prevent him from leaving and Naruto had never really cared about how Sasuke felt about his company. After the year ended, he had been reinstated as a ninja and allowed to do low-ranked missions as long as he was chaperoned by a ninja of higher rank. Seeing as Sakura was busy at the hospital and Kakashi was often busy with missions of his own, Sasuke had been left with Naruto, who had been the first to volunteer anyway. He had also been promised that any news of Itachi would be relayed to him. He would naturally be doing searching of his own on that front as well.

All of this accumulated to be the reason he was walking back to the village with an irritated blonde ninja and a child screaming that he was being kidnapped.

"This isn't fair!" the child roared, trying to wiggle out of Naruto's arms, but only managing little pathetic flops.

"Oh, shut up," Naruto grumbled.

They re-entered the village approximately two hours from the time they had left and were greeted with the horrified expressions of the boy's parents as they saw their son trussed up and screaming for help like some prisoner. Sasuke thought he might actually have to get involved when Naruto dropped the boy to the ground and pulled out a kunai. The boy's eyes widened fearfully and the father made a move to run forward, but Naruto just sighed in exasperation and made a point to quickly cut the ropes away and step back from the kid.

The boy's parents rushed forward and grabbed their son, who eagerly went with them, all the while glaring at Naruto like he was some deranged murderer.

"Your welcome!" he shouted at their retreating backs. He then turned and began walking with Sasuke back towards Hokage Tower.

"You'd think they could be a little appreciative after we'd been forced to chase after their brat," he complained.

"Quit whining. If you hadn't let him escape the first time, then we would have been done with this over an hour ago," Sasuke replied, then watched as Naruto's face rapidly reddened in anger.

"If _you_ had bothered to do_ anything_ to help, then maybe we would have finished sooner! But no, you're too good for these missions, so you stand around being stupid and useless instead!" he yelled, panting with barely restrained fury.

"Well it looks like being on a team with you rubbed off on me after all then," Sasuke replied with the same indifferent tone.

If it was possible, Naruto's face reddened even further, but before he could recommence with his screaming tirade, Sasuke cut in, "I'm going home, it doesn't take two people to give a report on a mission like this," and he turned away.

Naruto let go of an incoherent yell before shouting at Sasuke's back, "Fine, you bastard, but you better be here tomorrow for our new mission and don't forget about Sakura's birthday party! She'll break your nose again if you don't show up!"

Sasuke continued as if he hadn't heard anything, but smirked to himself as he listened to Naruto mumbling to himself about 'egotistical bastards' as the blonde entered the tower.

The walk back to his apartment was quiet and he contemplated the village around him. This detour wouldn't stop him in his ultimate goal. He would still find and kill Itachi and have revenge for his clan. He didn't need Konoha any more now than he had when he had left.

It was a small voice inside him that said he should be grateful to the village anyway. It was the same voice that had thanked Sakura before he left and the one that had looked on Naruto's broken form at the Valley of the End and refused to let him kill his best friend. That part of him looked at the familiar streets and people and told him that after Itachi was dead, and all was said and done, he would have somewhere to return to.


End file.
